The leaders of the aggrieved LLB graduates who have filed for an injunction to stop the upcoming entrance exams into the Ghana Law School, have alleged that they have received anonymous calls threatening them to back down on their course.
The group filed for an injunction on the entrance exams scheduled for this Friday, July 14, 2017, after the General Legal Council rejected an earlier petition on the matter.
According to leaders of the group, the anonymous callers warned that they will all be victimized even if they manage to finally gain admission into the school.
One of the leaders, Kenn Donkor Addor, told Citi News that he and his colleagues will stay resolute to the course even in the face of the mounting pressure.
“So far since we started this fight, it’s been two weeks now; and there has been calls from unknown numbers, private numbers calling us, threatening that if we don’t take care we will be victimized. But we have a conviction that what we are being directed to engage in is legal.”
“And as upcoming lawyers, we think that we cannot be pushed into this illegality. Since we are chatting the path of the rule of law, the rule of law is a cornerstone of the administration of justice. We hope that the General Legal Council will hold its law and allow the judicial system to work,” he added.
The Supreme Court on June 22, 2017 declared as unconstitutional the entrance exams and interview session before admitting new students into the Ghana Law School.
According to the court, in a case brought before it by Professor Kwaku Asare, a United States-based Ghanaian lawyer, in 2015, the requirements were in violation of the Legislative Instrument 1296 which gives direction for the mode of admission.
The Justices in delivering their judgment, also indicated that their order should not take retrospective effect, but should be implemented in six months, when admissions for the 2018 academic year begins.
But the LLB graduates petitioned the General Legal Council (GLC) to scrap the July 14 entrance exams and interview session describing it as illegal but the GLC vowed not to do such thing.
The GLC in its response to a petition from the group, said “the Council decided that in line with the terms of the judgment in the above mentioned case, the law school entrance examination scheduled for Friday July 14th would take place as planned.”
“Your petition, which includes among other thigns a request for automatic admission to the Ghana School of Law, is therefore declined,” the GLC said last Friday.
The Concerned LLB Graduates in their writ prayed the court to declare that “the admission criteria imposed by the Council in terms of an entrance examination and an interview for admission into the Ghana School of Law since 2015 contravene the provisions of Act 32 and L. I. 1296.”
The group also wants an order from the court to compel the Council allow automatic admission into the Ghana School of Law since to it the policy infringes on the fundamental human rights of students.
“A further declaration that plaintiffs and persons with the requisite qualification in terms of law (i.e. Act 32 and L. I. 1296) automatically qualify for admission into the Ghana School of Law. An order of court setting aside the unlawful criteria complained off as illegal and unconstitutional and an infringement upon the plaintiff’s fundamental human rights enshrined in the 199 Constitution of the Republic of Ghana.”
“A declaration that allowing the defendant-council to administer the entrance examination on Friday, 14th July, 2017 would amount to a grant of immunity from the consequences of breaching sections 13 and 14 of the Legal Profession Act, 1960 (Act 32), Regulations 2 and 3 of the Professional Law Course Regulations, 1984 (L. I. 1296) and articles 11(7), 23, 296 (a) and (b) and 2987 (b) of the 1992 Constitution,” the writ added.
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(Via: CitiFM Online Ghana)
